Chapter 82: Chapter 82

The veteran players' discussions, of course, didn't reach Jiang Ye.

He didn’t even know that not only had he been noticed by the Duoe Organization, but he was also the very first among this batch of newbies to be bet on as Rookie King by a big shot!

And the big shot who placed the bet on him as Rookie King...

That name belonged to the VIP player who had fused Apartments 1008 and 1010.

From Jiang Ye’s perspective, he only had the newbie view.

Seeing the mysterious Red Handkerchief Woman voluntarily surrender and Lin Jing secure his win streak, the audience broke into cheers and discussions.

He let out a sigh of relief.

At least the Quick Battle prize pool was safe.

But when he asked Wan Xin, Wan Xin couldn’t answer them either.

So he described the duel in detail to his Blackened Replica.

“Can you figure out how Lin Jing got pierced by those red threads from the Red Handkerchief Woman and came out totally fine?”

After all, he was planning to snipe Lin Jing’s prize pool later.

So the more clearly he understood Lin Jing’s abilities, the better.

Know your enemy, know yourself, and you’ll never lose a hundred battles.

The Blackened Replica mulled it over for a long time and gave an unexpected answer:

“I suspect that Lin Jing might not have used any technique at all.”

“Huh??” Jiang Ye was stunned. “Didn’t use anything? But that Red Handkerchief Woman made it seem like her red-thread domain was super powerful!”

“So what, was she throwing the match with Lin Jing??”

“Uh...” The Blackened Replica was momentarily thrown off by Jiang Ye’s weird line of thinking.

He quickly explained, “That’s not it.”

“The Red Handkerchief Woman’s ability might’ve been targeted specifically at Eerie players.”

“And Lin Jing isn’t an Eerie, so he was unharmed.”

“For example, my ‘Blood Mist Shroud’ glyph ability is super effective on human players.”

“But it’s almost useless against Eerie players.”

“Same with the ‘Fleshweaving’ glyph—it works better on humans. Against Eerie players, even if it’s not completely ineffective, its power is drastically reduced.”

“That red-thread domain the Red Handkerchief Woman laid out was probably a power aimed specifically at Eerie players.”

“Because she thought Lin Jing was one.”

“But she never expected... Lin Jing is actually human...”

At that line, the usually flat tone of the Blackened Replica actually revealed a hint of shock.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect Lin Jing to be human either.”

“Based on your description, he should possess a second-tier ‘Fleshweaving’ glyph ability.”

“At this point in time…”

“If he were an Eerie player, that’d be normal. Probably just someone who’d been taken over by a powerful Reincarnated Eerie.”

“But if he’s a human player, then he’s really powerful—like top-tier-among-newbies powerful.”

“Because human players can have multiple glyph abilities.”

“Though in theory, getting a second glyph ability is harder than the first, and the risk of turning into an Eerie increases.”

“But that difficulty is relative.”

“Someone like Lin Jing, who already has one glyph ability and even advanced it to second tier on day one...”

“For him, getting a second glyph would probably come with no risks or challenges.”

“The only question is, does he realize his situation clearly, and does he have access to a strong second glyph ability...”

Sounds like Lin Jing has serious potential!

Makes sense—he’s ranked #1 on the War God Ranking in their region by a wide margin!

Most of the other big names on Apartment 9999’s War God Ranking don’t even challenge him.

Can Jiang Ye still snipe his Quick Battle prize pool?

He didn’t overthink it.

He had a Privilege-Exempt Card anyway, so even if he failed, he’d chalk it up as experience.

What really caught his attention was a term:

“Reincarnated Eerie? What’s a Reincarnated Eerie? Is it really strong?”

The Blackened Replica shook his head. “Reincarnated Eerie is a term used specifically in the context of Beginner Apartments. In essence, it’s not necessarily strong, but compared to regular Eeries in Beginner Apartments, it is stronger.”

He went on to explain, “Because ordinary Eeries in Beginner Apartments are tied to the apartment itself.”

“When a Beginner Apartment is created, they come into existence.”

“When the apartment is destroyed, they perish too.”

“So these regular Eeries want to take over human players and survive.”

“But Reincarnated Eeries managed to escape that destruction.”

“However, escaping didn’t free them from the Beginner Apartment cycle. Instead, it bound them into a reincarnation loop within the Beginner Apartments.”

“In short, a Reincarnated Eerie is an Eerie that’s gone through more than one round of the Beginner Apartment.”

“So whether a Reincarnated Eerie is strong depends on how many times they’ve gone through the cycle.”

“In general, the more cycles, the stronger they are.”

“But high-cycle Reincarnated Eeries are rare.”

“Because reincarnating with the apartment is risky—they could die during the transition when the apartment is created or destroyed.”

Then, after thinking for a moment, the Blackened Replica continued with analysis and speculation:

“That Red Handkerchief Woman who fought Lin Jing is probably an extremely powerful Reincarnated Eerie.”

“Because there’s never been a precedent of ‘Midnight Ring’ occurring during the newbie phase.”

“That ‘Midnight Ring’ she experienced when the Beginner Apartment was created was likely caused by a very powerful Reincarnated Eerie.”

Jiang Ye agreed—it was highly likely the Red Handkerchief Woman was no longer a human player.

After all, if she thought Lin Jing was an Eerie player, then chances are she was one herself.

Did she have two modes, like Red Longkui and Blue Longkui?

Jiang Ye didn’t care much about the Red Handkerchief Woman.

After all, they had no real connection.

What he thought of next... was the White-Clad Woman.

She was probably a powerful Reincarnated Eerie too!

Thinking back, Jiang Ye had seen the white-clad woman crawl out of one TV screen after another in her apartment, just like Sadako...

At the time, he only felt it was eerie and terrifying, assuming it was just a scare tactic used by an apartment resident to mess with players.

But now that he thought about it...

Those screens she crawled out of—maybe they symbolized the Beginner Apartments she had reincarnated through.

That wasn’t a scary scene meant to frighten him.

It was the reincarnation path she had walked.

And back then, maybe even a single misstep could’ve caused her to fail her reincarnation and die right then and there? The rıghtful source is novel•fire.net

If you looked at it that way, the fact that she valued her hair so much—even chasing it across apartments—

It probably had something to do with her reincarnation, right?

Most people would stop thinking at this point.

But Jiang Ye couldn’t help going one step further—

If Eeries could reincarnate, what about humans?

Could he arrange for a Replica to reincarnate inside a Beginner Apartment?

With that thought, he asked the Blackened Replica directly.

The Blackened Replica was so stunned by his train of thought, it took him a while to formulate a reply:

“In theory, it’s possible—but the risk is way too high. There’s absolutely no need to do that!”

“Reincarnated Eeries only exist because they had no other choice.”

“For example, some with only a few reincarnations probably failed to find a suitable host to invade, and didn’t want to be destroyed, so they chose to reincarnate.”

“As for those with many reincarnations, they’ve usually developed... certain emotions that Eeries shouldn’t have.”

“Normally, Eeries are more than happy to parasitize humans.”

“But there are some who develop higher-level emotions and believe that Eeries should remain Eeries—they shouldn’t take over humans.”

“Just like human players hate Eerie players. That disgust stems from a kind of dignity of the soul, a high-level emotion.”

“Most Eeries don’t have this kind of emotional capacity.”

“But once they do gain that higher-level emotion, they become more like humans—wanting to live as themselves, upright and proud, without parasitizing people...”

So that’s how it was...

“Then,” Jiang Ye quickly asked again, “if a Reincarnated Eerie doesn’t want to parasitize a human, how do they completely escape the Beginner Apartment?”

He didn’t even wait for a response and just kept going on his own:

“The Beginner Apartment is controlled by the Apartment Boss.”

“So does that mean, as long as they kill the Apartment Boss, there's a chance the Reincarnated Eerie can escape without having to parasitize someone?”

That was the only reason he could think of for why the White-Clad Woman had issued that quest.

But again, the Blackened Replica was completely thrown by his logic path.

“Kill... the Apartment Boss?”

“Maybe some Reincarnated Eeries do believe that’s a solution.”

“But that naive idea is totally impossible to carry out!”

“The entire Beginner Apartment is under the control of the Apartment Boss. Think about it—in that situation, who in the Beginner Apartment could possibly kill the Apartment Boss?”

Jiang Ye realized, yeah... it was basically impossible.

He’d probably been set up with that quest from the White-Clad Woman!

She said there’d be no penalty...

But who knew? Maybe he’d end up throwing his life away!

D*mn it, is it even possible to bail on a quest ?

But he’d already happily made use of that Golden-Tier Duel Machine...

Maybe he could just ditch the quest after killing the Apartment Administrator?

Just as he was mulling this over,

He heard knocking at the door again.

He was about to go check the peephole, but the Blackened Replica was faster.

He raised a hand, and a floating eyeball appeared right at the peephole.

Gotta say—that was pretty convenient.

But then the Blackened Replica said, “No one’s outside.”

And almost at the exact same time—

From the living room’s TV screen, a voice suddenly came out:

The voice sent chills down Jiang Ye’s spine, his scalp tingled, and his pupils trembled!

Because that voice—it was the voice of Ding Deng, the one he’d killed!

How long had Ding Deng been offline? How the h*ll was he coming back from the dead?!

While Jiang Ye was still reeling from shock, he watched with wide eyes as Ding Deng’s image actually appeared in the TV screen!

A pair of cold, hateful eyes full of murderous intent locked onto him through the screen.

Then Ding Deng’s lips curled into an eerie smile.

“Didn’t expect this, huh, Jiang Ye...”

“I’m here for revenge!!”

And with that, the ghastly, corpse-pale figure lunged out from the screen!

In that instant, Jiang Ye’s sanity meter crashed—he nearly lost all reason.

Instinctively, he was ready to fight back!

But the one who lost it was only his No.1 Replica.

The real Jiang Ye, his main body, was observing all of this through the emotional links of his multiple Replicas.

And after everything he’d experienced, his real self had become pretty used to wild chaos.

Compared to the frenzied Replicas, the main body remained weirdly calm—

That sense of being a detached observer gave him a strange intuition the moment this weird crisis exploded.

So, just as the No.1 Replica was about to reflexively attack Ding Deng,

He didn’t hesitate and immediately swapped its place with the Mirror Replica.

Now, facing the vengeful Ding Deng leaping out of the screen—

It was Replica No.3, the Mirror Replica.

Up until now, Jiang Ye had mostly used the Mirror Replica for fusion purposes.

Because while the Mirror Replica would follow his commands, it couldn’t be controlled directly by thought.

So the moment it got swapped in and faced danger, the Mirror Replica instinctively launched an attack on Ding Deng.

In the blink of an eye, Frost Mist Invasion struck Ding Deng’s body!

But instead of being harmed, Ding Deng showed a sinister “got-you” grin.

And in the next second...

The Mirror Replica disappeared without warning!

Jiang Ye didn’t even know how this creepy Ding Deng attacked!

But after instantly killing the Mirror Replica, Ding Deng’s smile... actually froze.

It seemed the result wasn’t what he wanted.

His eyes sharpened, then suddenly turned toward Jiang Ye’s real body in the bedroom.

With a chilling voice, he sneered—

“So it was a Replica, huh...”

And almost as soon as the words left his mouth—

Right in front of Jiang Ye’s real body, hidden in the bedroom—

that ghastly, pale, and eerie face of Ding Deng appeared!

That face locked eyes with Jiang Ye, staring straight into his soul!

They were so close… it was almost face-to-face!!

Ding Deng’s now-slim, almost skeletal fingertips reached out and tapped directly on Jiang Ye’s chest—

right over his heart!

A point-blank ultimate move!

Fingertip aimed right at the heart!

It felt like in the very next second, Jiang Ye would die on the spot!

And the most critical thing was—

This wasn’t a Replica! This was the real body!!!

At that moment, even the relatively calm main body clearly experienced a brief flash of panic.

Almost instinctively, he wanted to resist!

In fact, any normal person would have reflexively fought back at this point.

Jiang Ye, relying on that strange premonition from moments ago—

and the explosive potential from this brush with death—

forcefully restrained that instinctive reaction.

He just stood there, back pressed against the wardrobe, not moving a single inch!

One second… two seconds… three seconds…

A few brief moments, but they felt like pure torture.

The Blackened Replica also flashed into the room—

but even he didn’t act rashly or attack “Ding Deng.”

Then, “Ding Deng” slowly pulled back from being so close to Jiang Ye.

After stepping back a few paces, his eyes still locked tightly onto Jiang Ye’s.

The smile was gone. His voice, too, became void of emotion, flat as still water:

Only now did Jiang Ye truly let out a deep sigh of relief in his heart.

It felt like surviving a brush with death.

But outwardly, he remained composed, and calmly replied to this “Ding Deng”:

“the Apartment Administrator.”